Heritage vehicles ready for visitors

Aldridge Transport Museum was one of many museums across the region which was forced to close its doors following the introduction of lockdown restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The museum, which features a wide range of vehicles, including, buses, commercial vehicles, private cars and transport memorabilia with a West Midlands connection, officially reopened its doors to visitors on Tuesday, August 11.

Chairman of the trustees Martin Fisher said the first day had been kept low-key, but had still seen a steady stream of people coming in.

He said: "We wanted to keep it low-key to avoid being overrun by visitors and to make sure the precautions we put in place like sanitisers and routes set around the museum all worked.

"We had a reasonable amount of visitors today who did as they were asked in terms of safety and who seemed to enjoy themselves and spent money in the shop, so all went well."

The only major change to the museum exhibits was that visitors are, for the time being, not allowed to enter the vehicles and sit in the seats.

Martin said there had been a number of new faces among the museum regulars and said he anticipated seeing steady numbers over the next few weeks, albeit with limited opening days.

He said: "We will be opening on just Tuesdays for now, so its only a part of what we normally do in terms of being open.

"However, we'll open for the full bank holiday weekend and then begin doing Saturdays and Sundays from September onwards.

"It's just nice to be back open and have people back in the place as we were a bit worries in the run up due to not knowing whether we're doing the right things or not.

"By reopening, we can share our love of these vehicles and show the heritage to people who are interested."

To find out more about opening times and what to expect at the museum, go to amrtm.org